


Five Ways Kate Heightmeyer Didn't Die

by havocthecat



Category: Highlander: The Series, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Death, Femslash, Het, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-20
Updated: 2007-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/pseuds/havocthecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are all kinds of ways that Doppelganger could have gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ways Kate Heightmeyer Didn't Die

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://community.livejournal.com/havocs_cry/22898.html) on LJ.

**Asuran(ish) Intervention**  
(Kate Heightmeyer/Elizabeth Weir)

"Kate?" Elizabeth stands in front of her. They're encased in a hazy blue glow, and Atlantis' towers are nowhere in sight. There's nothing there, nothing surrounding them but echoing emptiness. "Kate it's all right. You're safe now."

She knows her eyes were full of alarm. She can't calm her panicked breathing, not even while clutching at Elizabeth's hands. "Where am I? I was dreaming; I was falling, and--"

"Kate!" Elizabeth's voice is sharp. "Please! Try to stay calm!"

"There's something on Atlantis--" Kate pauses and takes one deep breath, then another, and finally a third, before the panic settling in her gut finally starts to ease. "An alien of some kind that can control people's dreams. It was in mine."

"I know." Elizabeth's voice is soothing, and Kate can't let go of her grip on Elizabeth's hands. She doesn't _want_ to let go. "There are nanites all over Atlantis from when the Asurans rebuilt the city. I can connect to them, but it takes some effort. I've been watching when I can."

"Where are we?" asks Kate, finally looking around. "Elizabeth, you haven't been on Atlantis for weeks now."

"You were going to die." Elizabeth smiles sadly. "I've been trying to keep quiet in order to avoid attracting notice. The Asurans don't know how capable I've become."

"Are you all right?" Kate's all right now. She's not sure where she is, or what she's going to do, but she's going to make sure Elizabeth is all right too. This is the woman who's given her life for the city more than once, after all.

Elizabeth nods. "There's so much to learn right now," she says, then she pauses, uncertainty washing across her face. "I'm sorry, Kate."

"Sorry?" Kate's lips twist into a slight frown. "For what?"

"I don't know how to manipulate the Asuran network fully, not yet," says Elizabeth. "I could bring your consciousness here when I sensed your heart rate rising, but your body--"

It sinks in what the blackness she felt must have been. "But my body is dead," says Kate. There's no place to sit, nowhere to go, so all she can do is turn away.

Elizabeth gives her a moment of silence. "It's the best I could do."

Kate nods. "I suppose it could be worse." This is Elizabeth. They've been friends and colleagues for three years now. They can find a way to share Elizabeth's body. The fact that she's part-Asuran is going to make the consciousness issues easier.

"Oh?" Elizabeth arches a curious eyebrow. "How so?"

"I could be stuck sharing a body with Rodney."

**Crystalline Memory**  
(Teyla Emmagan/Kate Heightmeyer; Katie Brown/Rodney McKay)

The entity has her. That's the one thing she never could have predicted. It doesn't kill people for thrills. It sweeps their memories away at the moment of physical death, and savors the fear as long as it can. It tells her that when her psyche is fractured, and all she wants is release, there will be a new crystal formed, one with her in it.

Gloating bastard that it is, it's looking forward to watching the whole process.

She doesn't particularly want to be a noncorporeal entity, and experiencing alien reproduction first-hand isn't a picnic either. So Kate does the only thing she can think of, and calls on her training. She uses every trick in the book, every memory of every training roleplay she can think of, _everything_, to convince the entity that she can't handle it. If it thinks she's cracked already--

Kate buries the thought under panic. She forces herself to feel overwhelming terror. She's in the entity, the entity's in Rodney. Rodney's body is familiar with the sensation, so it's a little easier to do than in, say, Teyla's body.

There's grief when Kate thinks of Teyla, and so she pushes that to the fore. She sobs, and it's not all faked. None of it is; it's just exaggerated.

It's ready to kill Rodney now, but before it does, before the alarm goes off to wake Rodney and it hibernates, it leaves a glowing crystal buried in a corner of Rodney's bedroom. Inside the crystal is Kate.

The process of coming back to herself is a slow one. Kate's pushed herself before, but this is different. The knowledge that her body is in the morgue serves as a cold deterrent when she panics.

She doesn't know how long it's been, but one night, Katie Brown is spending the night in Rodney's bed. Katie wakes up and Kate is glowing. Calling Katie over to her with the light is almost instinctive now, and telling Katie to touch her is effortless. Thank goodness Katie's a botanist, and therefore hasn't heard the details of the entity.

When Katie blinks and shakes herself, she frowns puzzledly, gets a drink of water, and goes back to sleep. As she settles down into slumber, she wraps her arm around Rodney. Kate leaves Katie's body and goes into Rodney's.

Kate's not sure how she enters Rodney's dream, but she's there, and he's in a circus surrounded by clowns in whale costumes. "This is some dream," she comments.

"Kate!" Rodney gestures with both hands at the clowns. "Oh, God, you see? This is what I was talking to you about in therapy. Dreams like this are why I'm so screwed up." He lets his hands fall and looks disgusted. "Wait, why am I telling you these things? This is a dream; you're a projection of my subconscious. You already know this."

She shakes her head. "No, Rodney, it's me."

"That's not possible." Rodney's eyes widen, and he looks horrified. "No, this is a dream. You died. That entity--"

"The entity reproduces by taking people's consciousness, driving them insane, and then depositing them in another crystal," says Kate. "You never noticed the one in your bedroom."

"I've been too busy saving Atlantis to look for psycho crystalline entities straight out of a Star Trek episode!" exclaims McKay. When what Kate said sinks in, he pauses. "Wait, you mean you--" He waves one hand at her. "Are you insane?"

"If a psychiatrist can't fake insanity," says Kate, with a wry smile, "who can?"

"Oh. Right." He pauses again. "Your body's still here, you know. It hasn't been very long. Not even a day. This thing moved via electrical impulses, so if we can get you--"

"Back into my body, maybe the electrical impulses will re-start my heart?" asks Kate. "It's worth a shot."

"You might die. For real this time." Rodney looks concerned, and Kate's deeply touched.

"It's worth a try," says Kate. She tries to look resolute, but based on Rodney's expression, she looks terrified.

"As soon as I wake up, I'll call Dr. Keller and Sam," he promises. He pats her arm awkwardly, trying to comfort her. Oddly enough, it helps.

Two hours later, Kate's in her own body, sitting up with her legs dangling off a hospital bed. She enjoys the feeling of _having_ legs, of letting them dangle and move idly. Jennifer has examined her and pronounced her "pretty healthy for someone who just died." She's off to the side now, briefing Colonel Carter and Colonel Sheppard on the state of Kate's health.

Teyla's standing in front of her, looking more joyful than Kate has ever seen her. Kate almost lunges forward, and then she and Teyla are holding each other.

"I missed you terribly," says Teyla, stroking her hair. "Kate, I am so sorry--"

"I know." Kate shoves away the memories of that last, fatal dream. "It's all right."

It's a long time before she's able to fall asleep, and longer still until the nightmares end.

**Ascension**

She's falling, terror overtaking her, but then she sees a woman with cinnamon skin and deep brown eyes. Chaya. Kate met her briefly when she'd come to Atlantis during that first year.

"Come with me," says Chaya, reaching out her hand, and Kate stops falling long enough to take it.

There's an angry scream from the entity as Kate fades into brilliant white light.

When Teyla comes to wake her in the morning, no one is there. Kate can't be found via Atlantis' life sign detector.

If the sound of the ocean is a little louder outside Teyla's room that night, no one knows why.

The others don't exile her to Proculus the way Chaya was exiled, but they don't trust her enough to leave her unsupervised. Kate ends up spending a lot of time with Ganos Lal and Melia, and going to visit Chaya. Kate's not an Ancient; she'll hold to their rules of not interfering whenever possible, but she's not going to shun someone for holding a different philosophy than the Ancients do.

"I see what you say about Rodney," says Chaya. They hover over Atlantis, invisible and unseen. "He has grown as a person."

Kate nods, as much as she _can_ nod with no body. God, she misses sex. "They all have," she says. "It was a gift, being able to come to Atlantis and work with these people."

"Perhaps they will find their way to Ascension as well," says Chaya. "Will you stay to watch them?"

"It's hard to leave," she says. Chaya can never stay for long. The Wraith of this galaxy watch Proculus with a constant, hungry gaze.

Ganos Lal arrives as Chaya makes her way back to Proculus. "It's difficult," she says. "To know they're in trouble and not be able to help them is almost unbearable."

"Like with Moros, you mean?" asks Kate.

"We were lovers, you know." Ganos Lal smiles. "Both before we Ascended, and after we retook corporeal form. We did what was necessary."

"We all do, in our own way," says Kate. She sighs, and the waves lap harder against Atlantis' piers.

"Not everyone dies," says Ganos Lal, reaching out to brush comfortingly against Kate. "You'll see them all again."

"Even Elizabeth?" asks Kate.

"Elizabeth is closer to Ascending than any of them," says Ganos Lal. "She just needs to see that."

"Ah." Kate is silent for a moment. "Let's go. I need some distance now, before I do something I'll regret."

"Let us go and argue with Adria, then." There's a smirk in Ganos Lal's voice. "The child _will_ be taught to respect our ways, even if she does not agree with them."

"I feel a little sorry for her," says Kate.

"As do I," says Ganos Lal. "What she has done, though, is unconscionable. In this, the others and I agree. Your counsel will be good for her."

If there was one thing she thought she'd never be able to do in her life, it was Ascend. At least that was something she'd _thought_ about, though. Post-Ascension therapy for the lone remaining Ori was something she'd never even considered.

**The Nigh-Inevitable Highlander Crossover**  
(Kate Heightmeyer/John Sheppard)

Kate's foot slips. She's plummeting through the air of Atlantis, and when she impacts a walkway, there's crushing pain.

In her bed, she's still sleeping soundly as her heart stops. Just a moment later, she convulses and gasps for air as the Quickening inside brings her back to life. Teyla's standing there and staring, while Jennifer is holding a life sign detector, her mouth open in a wide, soft 'oh' of amazement.

"I guess I have some explaining to do," says Kate, keeping her voice level.

"I guess you do," says Jennifer.

Ten minutes later, she's in the same isolation room that Major Lorne had been occupying earlier. She's standing, arms held at her side, and looking as harmless as possible as Colonel Carter grills her.

"You're telling me that there are people on Earth who literally can't die?" asks Colonel Carter.

"Unless our heads are separated from our spinal columns," says Kate.

"How old are you?" asks Rodney. He still looks poleaxed, and Kate feels for him. This is never easy to hear. "Wait, are you a real psychiatrist?"

"My credentials are valid," says Kate. "I went through medical school and interned in psychiatry exactly the way my personnel file says I did. My identity is forged, though."

"No, seriously, Kate, how old are you?" asks John. Kate can see the desire to trust her warring with suspicion. This _is_ new information, after all.

"Older than thirty-six," says Kate dryly. She hopes they don't decide to use her as a medical experiment. Getting involved with the Stargate program and coming to Atlantis was always a risk, but she'd felt that the rewards were more than worth it.

"Is this something you can pass on?" asks Teyla. The unspoken question is 'Could you have helped Elizabeth?'

"I'm sorry." Kate shakes her head quickly. "None of us know why this has happened to us."

"Let her out," says John, sounding tired. "It's Kate. She's not gonna hurt us."

"I concur." Teyla turns to Colonel Carter. "Colonel, Kate is a valuable and trusted member of this expedition."

"Can I run a few tests?" asks Jennifer. "I'd like to see what happens when--"

Kate smiles pleasantly as she cuts Jennifer off. "I'm afraid not," she says. "Please understand, one of the reasons we keep our existence secret is to avoid situations like this."

"Oops," says Ronon dryly. "Shoulda thought of that before you came to Atlantis."

"Let her out," says Sam. "We're in the middle of a different crisis. You and I need to have a talk later, thought, Dr. Heightmeyer."

Kate nods as she steps out of the isolation room. Teyla's waiting for her, as is the rest of her team. "I don't suppose there's any chance of keeping this a secret?" she asks.

"Until someone gets the idea to toss you out a window for real," says Rodney, and Kate flinches. "Sorry. Sorry."

Kate stays in her quarters while they trap the entity back in the crystal and take it to its home. She takes the chance to practice her yoga, and run through sword positioning. Being on Earth for six weeks had shown her how the edge had been taken off some of her sword skills. Now that the secret's out, she's considering asking Teyla to spar. No one knows if there are Immortals in Pegasus too.

Her door chimes, and when Kate goes to open it, it's John. His eyes are dark, and he's clearly furious. "I thought you trusted me."

"I do." Kate steps back and lets him in.

"That's a pretty big thing not to tell someone you trust," he says. "Someone you love."

"There's a lot I haven't told you," she says. Her voice stays neutral. "But everything I've told you is true. I've never lied to you, John."

"How old are you really?" demands John. "You didn't tell me before."

"Before was in front of Colonel Carter," says Kate. "I don't know her."

"Damn it, Kate, just fucking tell me!" snarls John.

"A few thousand years old." Kate meets his gaze, sees John's eyes widen in shock. "Give or take a couple of decades. Timekeeping wasn't precise back then."

"How'd you survive?" His breath gusts out shakily. "I'm not a history expert, but things weren't exactly easy back then, especially not for women."

"A lot of guile," she says, thinking back to those years. "Skill with a sword." That's only the start of it. She'd done her time striking first, before they could see a pretty woman and assume she was easy prey. She'd raised hell for a number of decades, found partners in crime like Methos, and then-- Then it had palled on her. On both of them, really.

Sometimes Kate thinks it means they'd only just then grown up.

"So what's this mean for us?" John's running this just like an interrogation. It should be disturbing. "You're not going to get any older. I will."

"It means the same thing as before," says Kate. She walks closer to John and takes his hands in hers. "We take this one day at a time. We survive Atlantis and this galaxy as best we can--" John opens his mouth to speak, and she gives him a _look_. "It's risky for me too. I don't know what would happen if the Wraith were to find me, or if the Asurans got their hands on me."

She'll wait to tell him that he won't get any older on the day he first dies. Not before then. Kate prays to forgotten deities that day will be a long time from now.

 

**Lucid Dreaming**

_It's just a dream._ Kate tells herself that, over and over again, but the entity's strong. It's stronger than she is, and even though she's fighting, she's finally up on the window, desperately trying not to fall.

As Teyla walks in, all Kate can feel is relief and a desperate desire to be saved. "I don't want to die!" cries Kate, but Teyla doesn't understand, not until too late.

Kate falls. It's still just a dream, but Atlantis is rushing past her, until finally, she pushes past the nightmare and into wakefulness.

Kate bolts upright from the dream, gasping, and her heart is racing. She scrabbles on her nightstand for her radio. "Medical emergency," she says, and her heart _won't stop_ pounding. Her back is aching, her vision is graying out, and she can't catch her breath. "Kate Heightmeyer's quarters."

When Jennifer rushes in with a medical team and a stretcher, Kate's not sure if it's been a few minutes or a few hours. The first thing Jennifer does is take her pulse, and by the time she calls for the defibrillators, Kate starts to code.

She comes back to herself in the infirmary, wearing white scrubs, with Jennifer standing over her. "You had us worried," she says.

"The entity," says Kate. She's got to warn them. She struggles to sit up.

"It's gone," says Jennifer, placing a hand on Kate's shoulder and easing her back down. "You should take it easy, Kate."

"Right." Kate breathes a sigh of relief. "It's over."

And it is.

\--end--


End file.
